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Last Dog At The Shelter Receives The Sweetest Farewell Party

Last Dog At The Shelter Receives The Sweetest Farewell Party
The Hawaiian Humane Society gives its very last shelter dog the warmest farewell.
Hawaiian Humane Society
The Hawaiian Humane Society gives its very last shelter dog the warmest farewell.
The Hawaiian Humane Society gives its very last shelter dog the warmest farewell.
Hawaiian Humane Society
The Hawaiian Humane Society gives its very last shelter dog the warmest farewell.

One shelter is ending 2016 on a very happy note.

Thursday marked the first time the Hawaiian Humane Society in Honolulu adopted out all of the animals in its shelter.

As seen in the video below, Beauty the dog was the very last animal to be adopted that day, so volunteers formed a human tunnel to bid their furry friend adieu.

“It was the first time in Hawaiian Humane history that our shelter has cleared out all the animals available for adoption,” Suzy Tam, communications coordinator for the shelter, told The Huffington Post.

Beauty was obviously in a happy daze.

On Wednesday, the Hawaiian Humane Society announced its “Clear the Shelter” campaign, an initiative to get the community to adopt all its available rescue animals before the new year. Under the four-day program, any person who adopts a pet before New Year’s Day will have all adoption fees waived.

Tam said the Hawaiian Humane Society wanted to energize its adoption efforts and find homes for its available shelter animals so that it could free up resources to take care of the more than 270 dogs they rescued from an abusive animal shelter back in October.

Most of those recently rescued animals, Tam explained, aren’t ready for adoption, but they do require a lot of extra time and care.

The adoption event turned out to be extremely successful and, on Thursday, a woman identified by the Hawaiian Humane Society as Jan visited the shelter and welcomed its very last pooch into her own family.

“The community has been amazing,” Tam told HuffPost. “They’ve just been supportive and wanting to adopt, so we’ve been really fortunate.”

Of course, the shelter didn’t stay empty for long after Beauty’s adoption.

Since the Hawaiian Humane Society has an open-admissions policy (which means it will never turn away an animal that is dropped off at its shelter), it can receive up to 65 new animals every day, Tam told HuffPost.

Fifteen animals were brought to the shelter Friday, but by the end of the day, all but three had been adopted, according to Tam.

An estimated 7.6 million animals are dropped off at animal shelters across the U.S. every year, but only 2.7 million are adopted, according to statistics gathered by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

What’s more, only 35 percent of dogs that enter a shelter are adopted into new families, ASPCA reported.

So if you’re considering adding a member to your family, avoid abusive puppy mills and adopt a companion animal from a shelter.

Look how happy it’s made Beauty and Jan!

Hawaiian Humane Society/Facebook

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